Absolute Rake Problem

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I too am having a problem with the absolute MGR being less than half what it should be, and I got the latest pokertracker patch the day it was available. But of more concern to me is the actual rake. To be precise;

On Sunday I played an Absolute session of 1/2 limit 6max where I played 137 hands. I won $20.87. I paid $23.26 of rake. This is obscene.

I noticed the problem during the session when I was blind stealing. I stole the blinds, raised $2.00, the blinds folded, pot is $3.50, $2.50 comes my way and a buck goes to the rake. With no flop. WTF? I'm risking $2 to win 0.50c??

This happened to me four times. It happened another 5 times that I saw to other players at the table. When I went back over my pokertracker stats I saw some other alarming discrepencies.
This is a copy of the email that I sent to their support.

To whom it may concern,

Playing on your 1/2 limit 6max tables today I noticed that my blind steals were being raked. To be precise;
Folded to me on the button. I raise. Blinds fold. $3.50 in the pot. No flop. $2.50 to me and a $1 rake charge. So in effect I am risking $2 to make 0.50c.
I checked your rake information and it states that your policy is to not charge a rake if there is no flop. Further, you state that your rake charge for this limit is 0.25c for every $5 in the pot. This however is not the case.

Here are some situations where it occured for you to have a look at.
Hand numbers;
210683909
210682077
210675759

Numerous others for other players at the table that I made a note of and can send you if you want. Your rules also state that the maximum rake for 1/2 limit is $2.00. Here are some examples where that doesn't add up.

210861616 - $2.25 paid on a $8.50 pot. (That is more than 25% rake)
210677444 - $2.25 paid on a $9.00 pot.
210666336 - $3.50 paid on a $35 pot, (I didn't win this but I had to mention it.)
210664617 - $3.00 paid on a $25.50 pot.

And my personal favourite;

210671514 - $2.00 rake paid on a $5.00 pot.

I've just moved to absolute from party where I have been a player since 2003. I've never seen anything like this before. Your assistance would be very much appreciated on this matter.

After emailing absolute support I received a stock standard answer saying that my problem had been referred to the floor manager or something and that, "they were there for me." Since then nothing.

I don't give a rats arse about the money but I'm not playing again at absolute until I receive some sort of explanation. Thought I would share this with you.

[BigBiceps]

I stopped playing NL there because they were raking uncalled overbets.

Also, when you withdraw cents like $100.38 for example, it shows as withdrawn then only $100 shows up and the .38 disappears (instead of going back into your account).

I have also seen pots raked where there was no flop, it was weird.

Needless to say their software has some bugs.

[numeri]

Are you noticing this rake at the table or in PT? Pat has an update to PT because Absolute changed their hand history format. I was having some weird rake issues as well, but only in PT. Maybe I need to pay more attention, though.

[2+2 wannabe]

over my last 2467 hands at absolute (thurs/fri), I paid 117.67 in rake

in each of these hands (I looked through them all) when I raised the blinds I was not charged rake

however, my MGR is only at 71 dollars....

Sorry if there has been any difficulties getting a response from our support team. I have taken a look at the 3 hands you listed specifically and none of them had a rake taken (they were hands that were raised by one player preflop and folded by everyone else). I am fairly sure this is an issue with PokerTracker, as there have been reports that hands are showing the incorrect rake when imported to PT. We are currently working on having PT compability fixed and expect that to be resolved very soon. If you have any further questions regarding the rake for any of your hands, please feel free to email me directly at prm@absolutepoker.com, as we are not raking anywhere near the amounts you mentioned, nor are we raking uncalled bets.

Richard Frost
Assistant Poker Room Manager
Absolute Poker
prm@absolutepoker.com

[irishpint]

what about MGR and rakeback, PRM.

I am researching this at the moment and will let you know about the MGR issues that people also reported.

[irishpint]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
I am researching this at the moment and will let you know about the MGR issues that people also reported.

[/ QUOTE ]

thank you! i'm not used to seeing poker rooms actually listen to us! thanks for your help.

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I contacted Richard Frost by email, he promptly came back with this reply;

"Hi Adam,



Thanks for your email. I believe I have figured out this issue for you. The discrepancy appears to have come about because your totals included uncalled bets as part of the rake i.e. you took the total bets into the pot, subtracted the amount of the pot awarded to the winning player and thereby got the rake total. In our system, uncalled bets are returned to the player who made the bet before the pot is awarded, so the amount of the uncalled bet should not be counted as part of the rake.



As an example, in a $1/2 limit game, .50 and $1 are posted as blinds, and if all players folded to the button, who raised to $2, the pot size would initially indicate “$3.50” (.5sb + 1bb + 2 raise). If both the blinds fold, the $1 uncalled raise is returned to the button, and the pot size will be reduced accordingly to “$2.50” before it is awarded to the button. The adjustment of the pot size to account for the uncalled bets that are returned takes place relatively quickly as the pot is awarded a very short period of time afterwards, so it is only displayed for a moment or two.



I have attached the hand histories for the hands and also included the hand numbers, followed by your comments, followed by my comments on the hand in blue.



210683909
210682077
210675759
In these 3 examples there was a raise preflop and everyone else folded. The uncalled bet was returned and no rake was taken. Just to double check that the problem was with the uncalled bets being counted as rake, I took hand 210682077 as an example and confirmed your starting $ amount in that hand and the following one. I have included the following hand as well (210682218). What you can see from that is that you started that hand with $135.12. The previous hand, 210682077, you started with $133.62, so as you can see the entire pot was awarded to you with no rake in hand 210682077 ($133.62 + $1 BB + 0.50 SB)




210861616 – your note said “$2.25 paid on a $8.50 pot. (That is more than 25% rake)”



I think this might be the wrong hand number. When I look up this hand I get a .01/.02 NL game with other players in it.






210677444 - $2.25 paid on a $9.00 pot.



I believe the discrepancy is due to the $2 uncalled bet at the end, which was returned. It was a $7 pot, with a .25 rake.



210666336 - $3.50 paid on a $35 pot, (I didn't win this but I had to mention it.)



The pot was $32.85 with a $1.50 rake. The $2 uncalled bet at the end was returned.





210664617 –$3.00 paid on a $25.50 pot.



The pot was $23.50 with a $1 rake.



210671514 - $2.00 rake paid on a $5.00 pot.



Total pot was $3 and no rake was taken. Uncalled bet of $2 was returned.









I hope that this answers your questions, as when I double checked using the hand histories and rake schedule it did match the correct rake. If you have any questions, or if I can be of further assistance please let me know.




Richard Frost
Assistant Poker Room Manager
Absolute Poker"

I also downloaded the pokertracker upgrade version 2.09 and then reinstalled all sessions dating from when the problem began.
After this had been done not only had my problems with too much rake taken been resolved but my MGR was pretty much in line with my affiliate.
Basically I noticed what seemed to be a problem with too much rake being taken out of a pot which then corresponded unfortunately at the same time with the issure with pokertracker, (obviously if I had checked pokertracker stats and seen that I wasn't in fact being charged too much rake then nothing would have come of this.)

In other words I saw myself only getting $2.50 from a $3.50 pot and pokertracker confirmed this exactly for me. A weird combination of errors.

I thank Richard for his prompt handling of the matter in such a professional way. I only wish that some other sites were as quick to address possible problems as absolute have shown here.